Healing from Trauma

A traumatic event has the potential to disrupt a person’s entire world. Although It sounds bleak, healing is not impossible. Though, truthfully, it is a long and painful process. Many people don’t attempt to heal from trauma because of how painful it can be to revisit painful memories. They may push the memories of the event to the back of their mind, hoping it will go away. These memories may even become repressed—yes, repression is real! You might think, “well, if you can just try to forget about the trauma, why bother addressing it?” Just move forward, stop looking backwards. The simple fact is that it is not that easy to just forget the past. We are all like art museums—with curated artworks from our past, each painting with great significance. Every event and interaction from your life has taught you something different about the world. Every experience helps to shape your politics, relationship with your community, opinion about humanity, your likes, dislikes, etc. Of course, no one is aware when this is happening. Our brain unconsciously integrates all our life events into a narrative. And that narrative becomes our essence; it’s how we live our life.

Now this is where the challenge lies. If a person goes through life, seamlessly and unconsciously turning their experiences into a narrative, what happens when that is disrupted by trauma? Well, almost instantly a person’s idea of the world as they knew it is ultimately questioned. This then leads to a person questioning their own identity; it becomes a true existential crisis. This often plays out in real life as self-destructive behavior—experimenting with drugs, disordered eating, self-harm. But it can also look much less dangerous—isolation, obsessive thoughts/behaviors, and people-pleasing.

In healing from trauma, it is crucial for a person to create a new life narrative. This new narrative allows a person to integrate the traumatic event; it becomes a part of one’s life, rather than defining it. When this happens, inner turmoil dissipates. However, it is so important that a person be equipped with an array of coping skills before going down this path. Like I said in the beginning, it is a painful process. You will be revisiting memories that are not pleasant, so it is necessary to be able to handle the negative emotions that come with that. But don’t be discouraged! It’s ok to take it slow, as everyone has different thresholds. And you can put a pause on processing trauma if it is becoming too much. The path of healing is not a straight line, so be gentle with yourself.